Yes. That is literally the first bullet: “discrediting Trump’s victory by saying it was due to Russian interference.” The third bullet directly relates to the first and second. It’s irrational to conclude otherwise.

This does not disprove that they believe that Russia threw the election in their favor, but it doesn’t prove it either.

Not mention Shadow Essence. It also dunks a lot of recruit cards. That said it has the terrible downside of being in your deck, and token decks are going to suuuuuuuuck as we conclude the year of the Mammoth.

Let me first off say that I, like the intelligence communities, the majority of congress and sane people everywhere, believe that Russia interfered with our election to the benefit of Donald Trump. I also strongly suspect that the Trump campaign was aware of this interference to some degree.

However, I hate shitty sensationalist journalism like this appears to be. Both the New York Times and The Hill could not find room for the other two bullets that would provide additional context to the reader.* That’s ridiculous.

Let’s play devil’s advocate for a moment and presume that K.T. MacFarland does not know of interference. She wrote this email hours after the Obama administration enacted sanctions against Russian intelligence groups in response to Russian interference. Would it be unreasonable for Ms. MacFarland to conclude that Obama would not have enacted these sanctions without solid proof of Russian interference?

Edit - The New York Times quotes part of the other bullets, but there is no link to even a short exerpt of the email and you get no sense that these quotes are bullet points that are related to each other. They’re leaving way too much for the reader’s imagination.

It was pretty much mid-range shaman or die, especially after the rockbiter nerf removed aggro from the picture. It was the absolute nadir of meta diversity. Gadgetzen was Pirates Vs Reno, so you got a choice of at least two decks.

No the real problem is Spreading Plague. If they didn't have Spreading Plague they couldn't run a deck designed to ramp the first 3-4 turns without being slaughtered by every aggro/token deck imaginable. And if your deck autolosses to aggro you can't play it on ladder.

Shit removal has always been druid's safety valve since ramp is so powerful, but the devs introduced a card that can just win the board on its own making good removal unnecessary.

I’m glad you made an exemption for The Caverns Below - it completely changed the way you looked at your collection. Previously unplayable cards like Vanish and Stonetusk Boar were suddenly optimal. Also I appreciated the fact that, as a one of that you built your entire deck around, the quest was always in your opening hand.

I do agree with you that parasitic cards like Jades, Murlocs, the Priest Quest are pretty damn boring from a deck building perspective, but even so they can be fun to play.

Just take some personal responsibility for your feelings. Maybe you got burned out in the game from playing too much. Maybe you find it's not a great fit for you because you want to play the game in a way that makes it hard to win. Maybe you're just not that good at it and you find that frustrating. Maybe you don't want to invest the time or money needed to maintain the collection you want. All of that is fine. Just put the reasons for the decision where they belong.

It probably has less to do with the blini stand oligarch and more to do with the Putin administration lashing out/saving face with a tit for tat play against American interests. It has the same sanctimonious tu quo quo tone of Russian adoption ban that followed the passage of the Magnitsky Act.

It won't be run in any current druid build. Most decks that run UI also run cheap spells so they can ramp to 10 mana and empty their hand to make room for the card draw. And you can't just run token druid with mire keepers because the deck relies on cheap buffs like mark of the lotus/power of the wild to snowball the board. Maybe you could try to do a more midrange list with Whispers of the Old Gods, but it seems like a lot to sacrifice for this one 6 mana card.